Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Relating to a sabbatical year.
  • adjective Relating or appropriate to the Sabbath as the day of rest.
  • noun A sabbatical year.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A contraction of Sabbatical year.
  • Sabbatic; characterized by rest or cessation from labor or tillage: as, the sabbatical years (see below).
  • Recurring in sevens, or on every seventh (day, month, year, etc.).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Relating to the Sabbath.
  • adjective Relating to a sabbatical.
  • noun An extended period of leave, often one year long, taken by an employee in order to carry out projects not otherwise associated with the employee's job. During the sabbatical, the employer may pay some or all of the wages that would have been otherwise earned or some or all of the expenses incurred. University lecturers, for example, may be granted a one-year paid sabbatical once every seven years.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to the Sabbath
  • adjective of or relating to sabbatical leave
  • noun a leave usually taken every seventh year

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Late Latin sabbaticus, from Greek sabbatikos, from sabbaton, Sabbath; see Sabbath.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek σαββατικός (sabbatikos).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sabbatical.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Beatrice Beckley has the thankless job of playing Lady Chiltern, one of those frightfully virtuous women of Wilde's who can't utter the simplest observation without dragging in such Sabbatical expressions as "we needs must."

    —Dorothy Parker, review of An Ideal Husband, in Vanity Fair, Nov. 1918

    This is probably the first time I've seen 'Sabbatical' used in anything close to the original sense of pertaining to the Sabbath.

    November 12, 2008